Boston Bruins: Positives, negatives, and next steps February edition
With their 4-1 win over the New York Rangers on Sunday, the Boston Bruins officially wrapped up their February schedule with seven wins and four losses.
The Bruins’ performance in February featured many notable moments, including a once in a lifetime game at Lake Tahoe against the Philadelphia Flyers, as well as some disappointing moments like the 7-2 bludgeoning they received at the hands of the New York Islanders.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at a few of the positives and negatives from the month of February and look ahead at what to get excited about in March.
Positives from the Boston Bruins’ February.
Pastrnak has returned.
The Bruins played the first month of the season without their top winger David Pastrnak. Coming off a season in which he was on pace to eclipse the 50-goal mark, the loss of Pastrnak to start the season was felt throughout the lineup as the team struggled to match the scoring potency that Pastrnak brings.
As Pastrnak has healed and returned to the lineup, he has been on an absolute tear through his first month of the season. Pastrnak led all Bruins skaters in goals (nine), assists (eight), points (17), powerplay points (four), and shots on goal (44), while averaging the second highest time on ice for Bruins’ forwards with 18:51 per game for the month of February.
His return to the lineup has helped boost the Bruins’ goals per game from 2.89 in January to 3.09 in February and has pushed both Patrice Bergeron (3 goals, 8 assists) and Brad Marchand (5 goals, 7 assists) to top form.
With Pastrnak back in the lineup, the Bruins “perfection” line once again looks to be firing on all cylinders and remains one of the toughest matchups in the league
Young defensemen have played well.
Heading into the 2020 offseason, the Bruins had some critical decisions to make regarding the future of their defensive corps. With captain Zdeno Chara and offensive-defenseman Torey Krug set to hit free agency, the Bruins made the decision to let both of them walk and opt to move forward with the young and hungry defensive prospects in their pipeline.
While this decision has certainly been criticized by analysts and experts, the young defensive unit has done everything in its power to prove those naysayers wrong.
Charlie McAvoy has started to blossom into an All-Star caliber defenseman and has taken on a leadership role along the Bruins’ blue line. He led the team with an average time on ice of 23:02 in the month of February and led the offensive charge on the blue line with eight points.
With McAvoy leading the way, the Bruins have ushered in a new era on the blue line as they have seen significant contributions from other young defensive prospects such as Brandon Carlo, Jakub Zboril, Connor Clifton, and Jeremy Lauzon.
As these players continue to contribute and develop their game, the Bruins are hopeful they may have an embarrassment of riches along the blue line.
The Bruins are at the top of the Eastern Division.
This one may be considered a cop out, but it truly is an outstanding feat early in the season.
This year’s East Division is a murderer’s row of competition with three teams that made the conference semifinals last year (Bruins, New York Islanders, Philadelphia Flyers), two teams that have won a Stanley Cup in the past five years (Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals), and two teams that have had the number one overall draft pick in each of the last two years (New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils).
As February wraps up, the Bruins find themselves tied for second place in the East with 26 points and trailing only the Capitals, who have 28 points. Although the Capitals have more points, the Bruins have two games in hand on Washington and are in prime position to overtake the Capitals for first in the division.
With the top five teams in the division currently separated by five points and only the top four teams making the postseason, this division is going to be contentious right down to the wire.
In order for the Bruins to avoid being the odd team out, they’ll need to continue to take care of business the way they did in February.
Negatives from the Boston Bruins’ February.
Injuries.
While every team in the league has had to deal with injuries (and COVID-19) this season, some teams feel the pain more than others.
The case could be made that the Bruins have been one of the teams most impacted by injury thus far and February certainly didn’t change that. While David Pastrnak made his much needed return to the Bruins lineup in February, they lost two key contributors in Matt Grzelcyk and David Krejci.
Grzelcyk came into this season with the lofty expectation of filling the top offensive-defenseman role that opened when Torey Krug left for the St. Louis Blues in the off-season.
Grzelcyk tallied three assists in the first six games and looked to be just starting to gel when he went down with an injury. He missed all but one game in February due to the injury, but it looks as though he may return to the lineup soon.
Meanwhile, Krejci was able to play a few games for the Bruins in February, but his loss significantly hurts their depth up the middle. With Krejci out of the lineup, it’s no coincidence that secondary scoring has taken a significant hit.
This has led Bruce Cassidy to shuffle the lines and rely on young Jack Studnicka to fill the veterans shoes. While Studnicka has certainly proved himself serviceable, it’s a nearly impossible task for Studnicka to meet and exceed the output of a playmaking veteran like Krejci.
Secondary scoring.
Over the course of the last few seasons, one problem that has consistently plagued the Bruins has been the lack of secondary scoring behind the Marchand, Bergeron, and Pastrnak line. Based on the performance we saw in February, it doesn’t look like that problem is going anywhere anytime soon.
While the returning David Pastrnak has been able to make up for this lack of secondary scoring with his hot start, it certainly can’t be counted on as a long-term fix and must be addressed if the Bruins want to make a run at the Stanley Cup.
Aside from the aforementioned top line, only Nick Ritchie (three) and Craig Smith (two) had managed to score more than one goal in the month of February heading into the final game of the month against the New York Rangers.
Charlie Coyle, Trent Frederic, and Charlie McAvoy were able to add themselves to the list with a strong performance against New York, but the jury is still out on whether the secondary scoring can consistently pick up the slack.
Goaltending.
One of the biggest advantages that the Bruins have developed over the last few seasons has been their ability to build a strong goaltending tandem.
Over the course of the last four seasons, the Bruins’ goaltending tandem has achieved both a top-10 goals against average and a top-10 save percentage, including finishing first in both categories last season on the way to the William M. Jennings Trophy.
The month of January saw Tuukka Rask and Jaroslav Halak combine for a .907 save percentage and a 2.13 goals against average, which was second best in the league.
As the calendar has turned to February, the goaltending play has dropped off a little bit with the save percentage dropping below .900 and the goals against increasing to 3.00 goals per game.
This downward trend may be a cause for concern if it continues because, as we saw in the postseason last year, the Bruins’ goaltending tandem plays a pivotal role in their success and can make or break their chance at winning the Stanley Cup.
Things we’d like to see from the Boston Bruins.
Figure out a gameplan to beat the Islanders and Devils.
Through the end of February, the Bruins have lost five games in regulation and an additional two in overtime. Of those seven losses, five of them have come at the hands of the New York Islanders (three) and the New Jersey Devils (two).
In fact, the Bruins have only managed to pick up a single win against either of those teams and that was in a shootout in the first game of the season against New Jersey. In those six games, the Bruins have been outscored by a count of 19 goals against to 9 goals for.
With three games against both the Islanders and the Devils in March, the Bruins will need to figure out the blueprint for defeating those teams if they plan to stay up at the top of the East Division standings
Fans return to TD Garden
On February 25, 2021, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker made the announcement that Massachusetts would be moving to Phase 4, Step 1 of the state’s plan to re-open the state.
With this next step came the exciting announcement that this would also allow TD Garden to re-open at 12% capacity. On March 23rd, the Boston Bruins will once again have a crowd, albeit small, cheering them on from inside the arena.
While there are still some questions regarding who has access to tickets and what the reopening will look like, it will certainly feel like a step in the right direction to once again have fans in the stands and a home-ice advantage.
Although no Bruins players have publicly spoken about the plan to reopen, many players likely share the same sentiment as Boston Celtics’ center Tristan Thompson when he said:
“Of course we’re limited to 12 percent or whatever the number is, so I know that will be the strongest 12 percent there is in the league cheering for us every night.”
More experience for Urho Vaakanainen.
Defenseman Urho Vaakanainen was the Bruins first round draft pick in 2017 and at 22 years old, the Finnish product has been highly touted as one of the top prospects in the Bruins pipeline. Having played 5 games for Boston over the course of the last two seasons, this season seems like it would be a prime opportunity for Vaakanainen to show his mettle with the Bruins.
Thus far, Vaakanainen has played only four games for the Bruins, but has registered two assists and averaged 20:56 time on ice during his limited time with the Bruins.
While Vaakanainen has certainly had his ups and downs in the early going, the injury to Grzelcyk and the wear and tear that the schedule will have should allow him to get into the lineup more often this season.
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Based on how highly touted Vaakanainen has been to this point, fans and the front office want to find out if the Bruins have found their next young stalwart on the blue line.